Math Field Day brings fun to learning in Pocahontas County

There were no calculators allowed and an entire day devoted to solving math problems.

For the kids and teachers at the annual Math Field Day at Pocahontas County High School this was a day to showcase mental acuity while having fun.

Krypto Tournaments were one of the highlights of the day. Krypto is a card game in which players must reach a number in the middle with their hand of cards using addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. Here is Alan Gibson, a sixth grader at Marlinton Middle School, winning a round of Krypto on Wednesday.

“Finally! 7 X 5 is 30 – 5 … ‘7 x5 is 35’ No, no, right. 35 – 5 is 30. 7 +2 is 9. 30 – 9 is 21. Krypto!”

Math Field Day was organized by Joanna Burt-Kinderman, district mathematics coach, with the help of math teachers at PCHS and senior math students. While no one knows quite how many years Math Field Day has been held in the county, Burt-Kinderman reminisced about when she attended as a student, as did Emery Grimes, School Board President.

“This is something that happens every year and I used to come and be in the contest myself, so this has been happening since I was a kid for sure and probably longer,” Burt-Kinderman said.

“Since I was a kid,” Grimes said.

“Yeah, did you come to Math Field Day too?” Burt-Kinderman said.

“I graduated Pocahontas High School in 1976, and it was still a big deal for the elementary and middle school children to come to Math Field Day,” Grimes said.

Burt-Kinderman is not only organizing math events in the county but participating in national math education research and development.

“So we have two projects going on right now in Pocahontas County. The first is that we are included in an investing in innovation grant and both of our middle schools here are funded to train teachers and to pilot curriculum through a partnership with Johns Hopkins, Old Dominion University, and Success for All, and bring real reasoning alive in math classrooms.

“The second project has been happening for the last four years, and we’re just starting to get some national recognition for it. It’s a project that brought together all of our high school teachers to create our own curriculum and wean ourselves from publishing companies, saving us dollars and investing that money in our teachers. We’ve had wonderful support for that project from our board members and from Mr. Beam who was integral in helping us create that project, and we’ve gotten national attention, as I said. This past month, we had a group of researchers commissioned from the U.S. Department of Education, who visited us and were very positive and very complimentary and are now inviting us to D.C. next week to be part of some conversations about how we can further that work, so that’s very exciting. We have a world-class group of math teachers here committed to the long-term growth of our schools. It’s really an exciting thing to be part of,” Burt-Kinderman said.

Laurel Dilley, PCHS math teacher, said it’s nice to have a day devoted to math.

“I just think Math Field Day is exciting because it’s a fun day where everyone is truly really excited about math, and there’s never another time where all the emphasis is just put on academics or just on math. We emphasize sports and other things like that all the time, but it’s really cool to see all these kids excited about math for a full day,” Dilley said.

Burt-Kinderman also applauded PCHS math teacher Chris Sutton who recently received certification to teach Advanced Placement Calculus, which students can take for college credit.

“This is the first year that Pocahontas County High School has had a designated AP Calculus course and that’s to the credit to these students and to Mr. Sutton, our math chair here, who’s put a great deal of effort into making that course be truly advanced placement. It’s very, very exciting that we have that, and we actually just got the news of the official designation yesterday,” Burt-Kinderman said.

Math Field Day winners:

Krypto Tournament

4th and 5th Grade
1st Place (Apprentice Master of Krypto!) Allyson Alderman HES
2nd Place Mason Solliday GBEMS
3rd Place Ethan Armstrong HES

6th, 7th, and 8th Grade
1st Place (Junior Master of Krypto!) Kayla Sharp MMS
2nd Place Alan Gibson MMS
3rd Place Cheylin Woodruff GBEMS

9th and 12th Grade
1st Place (Grand Master of Krypto!) Mark Jordan PCHS
2nd Place Casey Griffith PCHS
3rd Place David Rose PCHS

Math Field Day Competition (Based on scores from Quantity Estimation, Estimation Computation, Mental Math, and a written test)

4th Grade
O’Ganian Max 4 GBEMS 1st Place
Solliday Mason 4 GBEMS 2nd Place
Friel Jaryd 4 MES 3rd Place
Spencer Haley 4 MES 1st Alternate
Williams Sam 4 HES 2nd alternate

5th Grade
Warder Sarah 5 MES 1st Place
Robertson Ryan 5 MES 2nd Place
McGee Tucker 5 MES 3rd Place
Dunz Benjamin 5 MES 1st Alternate
Armstrong Ethan 5 HES 2nd Alternate

6th Grade
Mick Hadden 6 MMS 1st Place
Tejano Virgilio 6 MMS 2nd Place
Gibson Alan 6 MMS 3rd Place
Woodruff Cheylin 6 GBEMS 1st Alternate
Leyzorek Odie 6 MMS 2nd Alternate

7th Grade
Buzzard Brody 7 MMS 1st Place
Moore Matthew 7 MMS 2nd Place
Hendrick Dalton 7 GBEMS 3rd Place
Agee Julie 7 MMS 1st Alternate
Evans Isaac 7 MMS 2nd Alternate

8th Grade
Massey Colton 8 MMS 1st Place
Woodruff Logan 8 GBEMS 2nd Place
Sharp Kayla 8 MMS 3rd Place
Tegtmeyer Taylor 8 MMS 1st Alternate
Davis Benjamin 8 MMS 2nd Alternate

9th Grade
Hise Jacob 9 PCHS 1st Place
Wilfong Briar 9 PCHS 2nd Place
Jordan Mark 9 PCHS 3rd Place
Foe Gus 9 PCHS 1st Alternate
Leyzorek Laura 9 PCHS 2nd Alternate